Measuring Freedom around the World

Download book. pdf here www.fraserinstitute.org

Existing attempts to measure economic freedom have long been imperfect — blurring various definitions of freedom, using subjective rather than objective measures, and either failing to account for economic freedom or focusing exclusively on it. That helps explain the rationale behind the Fraser Institute’s new book, Towards a Worldwide Index of Human Freedom.

The book represents a major step toward developing an overarching Human Freedom Index (HFI). Produced in partnership with the Liberales Institut in Germany and the Cato Institute in the United States, the book is edited by the Fraser Institute’s Fred McMahon, who explains that the goal of the HFI “is to measure the degree to which people are free to enjoy classic civil liberties — freedom of speech, religion, individual economic choice, and association and assembly — in each country surveyed.” As suggested by the title, this is a work in progress; we are moving towards a human freedom index. McMahon notes that later this year, he and his team will present another version of the index that incorporates helpful feedback on the first draft.

The book’s contributors have combined economic freedom measures from the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index with measures of civil and personal freedoms — including security and safety, freedom of movement, freedom of expression, and relationship freedoms — to create the prototype of a complete HFI.

After all the number crunching,